My Beliefs, My Values, My Strengths and My Heart. My Vision. My Plan and Platform. My Principles.
I keep thinking about why I want to run for the House of Representatives and do something like this. I don’t know. I think really I’ve just come to like this point in my life where nothing else makes sense to me anymore. The country, people, the entire world is so different to me than it was when I was a little kid. I was born and raised on Long Island, New York, and I really believed in freedom of expression. I really believed in families, community. I really believed in goodness in the world. Even if there weren't a lot of people (I figured) that I'd always run into one or two or a couple and it just never really turned out that way. It's easy to think that it's an individual, singular experience or perspective, but as I've gotten older, I'm convinced that it's just everywhere. I don't see people smile anymore, and when they look at me smiling, I think they think that I'm out of my mind. And I keep thinking why. Why put in all that effort in being a good person and raising a good child if raising a good child means that child will not have a place in the world when they get older? And fundamentally, that's how I feel - misplaced - and, and that I've never been able to find, as they like to say, my tribe. So this is to me, a culmination of things that have happened in my life. I, I know that when I was a young boy, I, I was definitely always different than all the other kids and, a lot of adults, a lot of people like to think that they're different, but I think everyone is forced to act and think the same. And I'm one of, one of those last holdouts, I think proudly. I haven't let the world or the predominant influences actually penetrate and convince me to think otherwise. I've always led from my heart, my mind. And so I find myself in 2025. What a beautiful year, alive and still happy. But I don't see anyone else that feels this way. I think it perhaps might be what people like to think (that it’s) some type of destiny that I was supposed to have a long string of disappointments and bad luck with a couple of hiccups of positive reinforcement to convince myself that I was meant to be a Representative of the People. Because I am that. I've had this identity issue, never knowing where, where I belong since I was a young person, Hispanic and Italian, Ecuadorian on my mother's side, Italian on my father's. I never fit in anywhere. I wasn't tough enough or cool enough for either side and I've always enjoyed being around people, especially once I got over my crippling stage fright. I've been a hyper-sensitive person ever since I was young and I continue to be a hyper-sensitive person. I feel things more than anyone else, I think. Growing up… I remember some of the girls or young women… it was that term that we called being a tomboy - I think I was the opposite of that. I had some qualities where I was a tomgirl, but to me that was just being able to relate with girls, with women and trying to experience the world through multiple, multiple lenses. And so here, as I'm nearing 50 years of age, I just want to give all of this, all of this that I have inside my mind, my heart and soul. Give it back to somebody and to something, to the world. I haven't settled down and maybe I'll be able to settle down with you.
I am a native New Yorker who has made New Jersey's 8th Congressional District his home for the past 16 years. As an adolescent growing up in the United States of America, I was instilled with the democratic and conservative ideals that our nation was founded upon, namely, the principles of Freedom and Justice for all. It seems so simple to me, that a miraculously loving and protective veil of Constitutional laws were enacted for the welfare of all people irrespective of their character or physical make-up, and all we have to do is follow it and pledge allegiance to being a good and moral person. Yet, our country continues to struggle with this blessing, so much so, that I've reached my own epiphany in my own life, that I've decided that I can't bear to witness any further degradation of what's left of our beautiful society and way of living, and I must impart and share the God-given gifts that were ordained to me, with others. I want to represent the people of New Jersey's 8th congressional district; I want to make sure that their voices are heard; I want to make sure that the heroes before me did not perish in vain, that there is STILL hope and STILL people like me willing to put aside their personal ambitions for the betterment of others... in fact, for reasons that have become evermore emotionally clear to me, my personal ambition now, perhaps always, was destined to serve the nation, the citizen, the good person, the world. Please consider voting for someone JUST LIKE YOU, I'm your cousin your brother you neighbor your friend... Richard Barilla for Congress. I'll fight if you fight, I'll cry when you cry, and we'll carry each other forward, together.